276.
No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than the earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty, and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the counties of the north.

In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert seized an opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle, which Albemarle had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this nobleman, instead of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy with Fawkes de Breaute, Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both fortified the Gastle of Biham for his defence, and made himself master by surprise of that of Fotheringay.

Pandulf, who was restored to his legateship, was active in suppressing this rebellion; and with the concurrence of eleven bishops, he pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his adherents:[*] an army was levied: a scutage of ten shillings a knight's fee was imposed on all the military tenants.

Albemarle's associates gradually deserted him; and he himself was obliged at last to sue for mercy.

He received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.
This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune and to set at nought all law and justice.